Artspace and The Actors Fund Housing Development Corporation Announce Partnership

(Minneapolis, Minn.) Artspace and The Actors Fund Housing Development Corporation (AFHDC) today announced the formation of a partnership, bringing together two of the nation’s leaders in the area of artist housing to create the Broadway Arts Center in downtown Los Angeles. This partnership underscores the viability of the project, which will provide affordable housing for artists and signals a commitment on the part of these organizations to move ahead with development.

While this announcement marks the formalization of their partnership, Artspace and AFHDC have been working for the last year and a half with the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, as well as the California Institute of the Arts and Bringing Back Broadway, on a feasibility scope of work that has included public input meetings, focus groups, comprehensive arts market surveys and an affordable housing/commercial market study. A summary and initial results of this work are available at http://creativespacela.org/. This work, funded through a grant from the NEA Mayor’s Institute on City Design 25th Anniversary Initiative, found tremendous unmet need for affordable space for artists, arts organizations and creative businesses in Downtown Los Angeles. Artspace and AFHDC, with their newly formed partnership, will continue working toward the creation of the Broadway Arts Center in Los Angeles.

Artspace, with more than 30 years of experience developing affordable space for artists and arts-related organizations, and The Actors Fund, a nationwide human services organization that helps all professionals in performing arts and entertainment, bring their considerable expertise in the area of housing, along with their shared missions of serving individual artists to bear in their first joint project.

“Artspace’s experience and leadership in successfully developing affordable spaces for the arts community make them the perfect partner for this project,’ said AFHDC President and CEO Scott Weiner. “Together we will be able to make the vision of affordable spaces for artists to live, create and collaborate a reality in downtown Los Angeles.”

“I’ve been an admirer of the work of The Actors Fund for years and I’m thrilled to finally join with them formally,” said Artspace President Kelley Lindquist. “The Broadway Arts Center is our second project in California and the AFHDC is the perfect partner for us in Los Angeles, where they have such a strong presence.”

Next steps in the process of creating the Broadway Arts Center include site selection and evaluation. A timeline for completion of the project has not yet been finalized, but according to Artspace, which has developed 30 properties around the country, projects of this nature can take anywhere from three to six years.

About Artspace
With headquarters in Minneapolis and offices in Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York and Seattle, Artspace is America’s leader in arts-driven community transformation with 30 projects in operation in 13 states. To date they have completed more than 1,000 affordable live/work units for artists and their families as well as a million square feet of non-residential space for artists, arts organizations and creative enterprises. Additional information is available at www.artspace.org.

About The Actors Fund
The Actors Fund is a national human services organization that helps everyone—performers and those behind the scenes—who works in performing arts and entertainment, helping more than 12,800 people directly each year, and hundreds of thousands online. Serving professionals in film, theatre, television, music, opera, radio and dance, The Fund’s programs include social services and emergency assistance, health care and insurance, housing, and employment and training services. With offices in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, The Actors Fund has—for 130 years—been a safety net for those in need, crisis or transition. The Actors Fund Housing Development Corporation (AFHDC) is a subsidiary of The Actors Fund, which develops affordable, supportive and senior housing for performing arts professionals that creates jobs, improves lives and helps transform communities. Visit www.actorsfund.org.

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